Mass spectrometry, in general, is a powerful technique for detection of minute or trace levels of compounds, and combinations thereof. With the development of electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI) and matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI), both soft evaporation/ionization methods, it became possible to nearly simultaneously evaporate and ionize large, thermally labile molecules. These advancements further enabled the use of mass spectrometry in biology and the life sciences. However, ESI and MALDI methods are biased toward polar and ionic compounds and are therefore not ideal for studying non-polar compounds in their natural state. Additionally, the ionization of analytes in ESI and MALDI is limited to protonation, deprotonation, or cation attachment, thus the study of nonpolar compounds remains difficult. Further, ESI and MALDI methods are not suited for ionizing analytes which do not comprise easily ionizable functional groups, such as saturated and unsaturated hydrocarbons [1]. Accordingly, there exists a need for additional equipment and methods of preparing analytes that are not readily ionizable for analysis by mass spectrometry some aspects of the invention disclosed herein addresses this need.